The latest figures from market research firm NPD shows Wii sales in the United States last month were higher than expected, and conversely, 3DS sales have dropped compared to the previous month.

Equity research company Wedbush Securities predicted that Nintendo would sell 225,000 Wii consoles in the month of May, which wasn't far off the mark as a total of 236,000 Wii consoles were sold according to NPD. In the same month, Microsoft sold 270,000 Xbox 360 consoles, whereas Sony only managed to shift 175,000 units of the PlayStation 3.

Nintendo's handheld system hasn't been selling as well as its home console brother, as 3DS sales were down 50 percent compared to the previous month, which according to Gamasutra's calculation, puts 3DS May sales at around 97,000 units.

With these figures, total 3DS sales in the United States are now sitting at just under 700,000. Earlier this week, we reported that Japanese 3DS sales have surpassed one million, giving Japan the honour of being the first region to do so with Nintendo's latest handheld system.

Now that Wii U has been officially announced, it will be interesting to see what Wii hardware sales will be like for the month of June.